So who actually kept up with Warhammer after Fantasy was killed off?

[dope_danny]

I was always more of a 40k fan as a teen and in later years moved onto stuff like Frostgrave and Malifaux where a small skirmish game of 6 or 7 models meant less time spent painting and less money to be able to play. I was however always interested in Fantasy. I tried making armies for Tomb Kings and Dwarfs but never got that into it. Right when i was looking into it again it died.

In its place they released 'Age of Sigmar' which looked a LOT like a desperate attempt to rebrand to bring in a younger audience with simpler rules and larger models. I heard nothing but bad things and noticed all my local Games Workshops -which in the english midlands not far from the world HQ is a lot of them- where often completely empty nowadays.
But the other day i went into one on a whim just because i had that model making hankering and asked what was still a thing. Apparently my old tomb kings are dead and gone and vampire counts were merged into a greater 'death' faction and according to the clerk they had to soft reset the rules because AoS launched with no points at all and just 'for fun rules' so you could field as much as you wanted with no issues while points would mean having set limits for games like '1 hero, two units and a heavy' on either side for more balanced play. They claimed it was starting to turn things about but people still hated that humans had been replaced with medieval spacemarines instead of the old bretonian style horsemen and knights.

Still it interested me and i picked up a Skeleton based starter box and some new paints and the rulebook and sure enough was surprised that this pre rule reset had it so undead could summon infinite undead onto the field mid battle and nothing had points values.

For me its just a project to enjoy as part of my modelling hobby -and i always wanted a vampire counts black coach but didnt have the skills to do it as a kid- but asking around nobody i know actually kept up with the game. They tried a few games with the launch rules and quickly sold their thousand figure skaven and chaos armies to get into Malifaux, Warmachine or Kings of War.
I know theres some tabletop players on MMOC, did any of you stick with Warhammer after fantasy died? or did you leave it when your army joined Tomb kings in the trash?

[Golden Yak]

If by 'kept up with' you mean 'kept reading about', then yes. Technically, stuff like Tomb Kings and Brettonnia still have rules for their model range, but lorewise these and all other factions from Fantasy save Chaos have been eliminated, and new factions have been created to use the old models. For the most part GW has been focused on creating new figures for new units however, like the aforementioned Sigmarines. The new dwarf/duardin faction that was recently released, Kharadron Overlords, is an example of what I would like to see more of.

Popularity wise, I think AoS is growing, but its hardly a 'smash hit success story from day one' thing.